anxiety spreads like the plague

I teach the kids I work with all about anxiety and how it affects others as well as ourselves. It makes us sick physically and mentally and is often hard to recognize right away. In the "heat of the moment" so to speak.

I find myself struggling with practicing what I preach the last couple days. I have spent 2 months with sleepless nights, over active and over tired baby with reflux, teething and learning to walk, crawl, pull herself up, talking etc. etc. This sounds like a horrific 2 months and perhaps that I am going to enjoy going back to work to get a break. Desite all the noise, crying and night waking. I have enjoyed being a stay at home mom. I know where my kid is all the time and what she's doing. I see when she does something new because I am there all the time. I think it has become a double edged sword I wasn't expecting. I have today and tomorrow left with my little peanut and then it's back to work for me.

I find my anxiety level amping up this week. Sadi obviously feels it and I see my husband reflect it so often. (He's very good at mirroring my anxiety and frustration without even being aware of it.) I find myself in a position where I need to calm down for the rest of the family to calm down, but in the midst of it all there are days where I want to throw myself on the floor and start throwing a tantrum about how I don't want to be the strong one anymore. I don't want to keep things together anymore. I don't want to be responsible for my own actions anymore.These are the days I wish my husband could read my mind and just come in and rub my back or take the kid for just a few minutes for me to catch my breath.

Me wishing that of my husband only justifies what I tell the kids at work every day. We can't control what others do and feel. Only what WE do. It's the only thing we can control 100% of the time. I forget this and expect a miracle of my husband or an always perfect baby. I assume they are going to bend when I am having a hard day. In some aspects they do and I love them for it, but to expect it is a childish way of seeing the world and as I write this I realize that I have to continue to relearn all my lessons. That adjusting what I do will cause them to adjust how they are reacting to me.

To quote Anthony Robbins: "If you do what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten"

If you continue to yell at your dog for peeing on the floor and it never seems to learn... you'll continue to get pee on your floor when you yell at your dog. I believe the same thing goes for being a parent. If you always do what you've always done and you aren't getting the response you want. Try something new. If you're anxious and you always react with frustration to your spouse and your kid(s) you'll always get resentment and hurt feelings in return. It won't change if you continue to react the same way. Try something new today. Relax, grab your loved ones and kiss them or hug them. Change it up. You'll like the positive responses you get when you put positivity out there for others.

I believe the same goes for getting babies to sleep. If we respond with negativity, neglect and frustration we will always get a negative response. Perhaps the baby will stop resonding for a while, but in the long run we will eventually see negative reactions to those negative choices we made. If we chose to resond quickly and with love and understanding to our children they will, in turn, grow up as quick, loving and understanding children and adults. It is only logical. So, love your baby extra every day. They don't see the world as we do and we need to put our own issues aside to help them grow in their own way.

That's all for today. I'm going to try to take a nap and sleep off some of this nasty anxiety. <3 Take care of those babies.

Returning to work

There is a huge debate between two groups of moms I see regularly. The stay at home moms (SAHM) and the work out of home (I'm not sure if there's a short term for this one). They seem to go back and forth about which is better for the kids and socialization and so on and so on. I guess it depends on which side of the coin you happen to land. The stay at home moms say they love it and it's the best for the child. The moms that work either say they wish they could stay home, but can't afford it. Others state that their kids are watching them be productive parts of society. It becomes a heated battle on many sites around the interwebs.

I guess for me it's a bit different. I get to be a stay at home mom in the summers and work during the school year. This will be great once Sader-tot is at school, but a whole different ball game when she has to spend her days with someone other than me. We picked a great family to spend their time with Sadi, but, as everyone knows, mommy is best. I initially assumed my summer would be monotonous and dull. The days dragging on like I have a kid chained to my ankle and I can't escape, eager to return to work.
As the summer comes to a close I realize that I was totally wrong. I have less than a week left to return to work and I dread every second of it. I have enjoyed my time with Sadi so much and to drop that time to a few waking hours a day, I think I might find myself hovering over her bed at night just to catch a few more peeks at my sweet girl.

My job is rewarding at times and absolute chaos at others. Working with kids gives me such a wide perspective on how kids are so resilient and withstand so much. I see how kids make it through more than most adults have seen in their lifetime. This also has left me jaded. A little more scared and holding Sadi a little tighter as I leave her with others. I've seen some of the things that could happen. Some of the things that do happen. Most of which are preventable, but as mothers our minds go strait to "what if that was my kid", right!? Seeing the outcome makes it so much more real. Like I can't say, "I don't know anyone that's happened to" or "That doesn't happen that often."

I know that things will go great and once I get into the swing of things I will enjoy the things about my job I once did. Teaching kids to be polite members of society (as much as humanly possible for the population I work with) can be fun and rewarding and keeping my eyes on that aspect as well as the skills I am learning about parenting as well as teaching my own child.

I hope my empathy and kindness for others rubs off on my daughter and she has the same work ethic her father and I have, b ecause despite not working for the last 2 months, I have worked my ass off at home! Taking care of a baby and a husband is tough work.

Perhaps we can have another one soon and I won't have to work anymore....

No sleep till.....

We have been a house full of zombies. You know when people tell you that raising kids is always in steps. Once you get the first one memorized the next step goes and F's it all up for you. We have been working on a step for about 2 months now and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on!

A week before I was done with work (end of May) Sadi stopped sleeping through the night. We have multiple options to choose from as to why this would happen. She was given antibiotics for an ear infection (let her try to fight it for 10 days before giving it), her teeth started tearing through her gums, the doc told us we could give her yogurt so we started giving cheeses and yogurt as well as more solid foods.

All of these things could contribute. So, we took out the antibiotics. They were finished 2 months ago. No issues there. We continued to think it was her teeth and it would slow down. No such luck. I hear that kids go through these phases, but this kid looks like she is rithing in pain when I go in to get her in the middle of the night. She also does it when sleeping with me, so we know it's not from missing her mama.

I have a week and half left to go before I have to go back to work. Hopefully there is some miraculous cure to our sleep woes and things will get better. I hope. You should hope too, because I am not a very "with it" or nice creature when I'm tired.

I was one of those girls who could sleep (and still can) for 15 hours strait. I'd get up to pee or have a little snack, but right back to bed. I LOVE sleep. That should show how much I love my little Sader-tot. I gave up one of my favorite things in the world for her, to have her, to show a little person how amazing this world can be.

Now...if I can just show her how amazing a whole nights sleep can be. ugh!

Baby led weaning

Here is a picture of sadi eating noodles! We decided to combine blended foods with solids (baby led weaning). Here she is enjoying noodles!

Just monkeyin' around

Sadi is almost crawling. She moves backward instead of forward! It's pretty funny!

breast feeding.....the beginning

Have you every started out with an idea of how things were going to go and  then when it happened it totally blew your mind? Like something more powerful, and unseen, was determined to make things go in a totally different direction?
That's how my breastfeeding journey started. The first day I met my little bundle of joy I was tired. Exhausted. empty of all rational thought. Then I was handed this little creature that came out of me and had made the decision to feed it with another part of my body. I knew the general idea and had her latched with no problems on my LEFT breast (keep that in mind later in my story *wink*). It was a, hard to remember, moment I will never forget.
She was born at 4:44am after I had been in labor/being induced since 6:30 the morning before. My family gave me some time to myself to get washed up and settle in. I got a little nap and woke up because my little girl was crying. I assumed it was to eat or be snuggled, both of which are things she still loves at 4 months. I tried to nurse her on the RIGHT side. This nipple is inverted. Not sure if you wanted  that information, but you got it and once you've learned something it is hard to unlearn it. I tried everything to get this little, helpless girl to latch on and she just cried and fussed and became agitated. The more frustrated she got the more I did. I gave up and fed her on the other side. The LEFT side. She nursed and was happy, but I was left feeling a little bewildered about it.
Everyone showed up and was very happy to meet the new baby. Meanwhile I was still feeling a little inadequate.  I met with the lactation consultant. She gave me some advice on using a nipple shield. Neat little things that sucked the nipple right out and made nursing a breeze for little Sader-tot. Unfortunately she did not tell me that the rubber/plastic silicone would make my nipple rub and bleed and crack when it was forced to moosh into that shield. After she had success with the shield in the hospital it worked when we got home.
The only problem with taking it home...I couldn't get her to nurse after being home for 2 days. In the middle of the night the poor dear was screaming because she wanted to eat and I couldn't get her to latch. She hadn't eaten in hours and was screaming for the duration. I took her to the ER. They helped me calm down as well as her. She eventually latched there and we went home. It was an expensive lesson, but we got through it.
The cracking and pain continued. Some days were better than others. It became easier and easier each day. I knew that I had to keep at it and continue to increase my pumping and nursing if I was every going to feed this girl when I went back to work.
It eventually got better. My cracks and sores healed. I went back to work and now I manage to pump enough at work for peanut to eat and to save about 5-6 oz.
I hope that my journey through this may help others as well as continue until my little girl decides she is good and ready to ween herself. So far so good!

Mental mama signing in

I figured there would be some sort of organization to the madness of being a full time working mother. I had seen others do it, and figured "why not me?" I had worked hard to get to this job and this place in my life without a lack of bumps along the way. I figured having a baby would just be another addition to my already chaotic life.

People warn you that you won't sleep a full night for the first year, at least. That you will be worn down and tired all the time, and your work may suffer. You are told your life will change and your old habits may die with that nice soft, flat tummy you once shown so proudly. I can go on and on about what people have warned me about and what they advise as "the right way to raise a child".

In my experience with working with mentally ill adults and children there is a constant I notice. That constant thing is a lack of a consistent, predictable, supportive familly. Whatever your definition of family may be; weather broken, two moms or two dads, one parent or grandparents. Maybe foster parents.

Keeping a family together and keeping kids on the right path takes alot of work and responsibility. I cannot go into detail about what I see at work or anything about my students, but I can post my struggles with being a "mental mama" and trying to raise a a child of my own.

I hope you enjoy!